


Confuse, Don't Abuse

by lunarlychallenged



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Academy Era, Academy Era AU, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 17:57:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14194521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarlychallenged/pseuds/lunarlychallenged
Summary: When a Freshman prank gets out of hand, Fitz decides to anonymously comfort Jemma.  It backfires when she wants to meet the new mystery friend.





	Confuse, Don't Abuse

Once, Fitz overheard one senior at the Academy telling another that the only rule for freshman pranking was to “confuse, not abuse.” He thought that it was a very reasonable rule; after all, it was much funnier to baffle and surprise people than it was to unintentionally (or intentionally) hurt them.

The boys generally followed that rule, much to Fitz’s relief. He could handle silly pranks, like the time someone connected his rocket project to a remote control, and then set it off once it was if the professor’s office. He had been lucky; another boy in his year had been pinned down and had his hand doused in alcohol. They told him that it was gas, and in his panic, he hadn’t thought to just smell the difference. When they lit a match and dropped it into the boy’s palm, he had wet himself. It was sort of funny, from an outsider’s point of view, at least, but Fitz still had trouble falling asleep for several weeks. He couldn’t stop remembering how scared the boy looked.

Perhaps Fitz only thought that girls were crueler than boys because he would never think to prank the way they did. Or, perhaps, it only seemed over the top because Jemma was his best friend. Whatever the reason, Fitz thought that perhaps women were some of the scariest and most capable of all things the day Jemma had to hide tears in their leadership seminar.

Becoming Jemma’s friend had been a terrifying ordeal, but once they hit it off, they really hit it off. There had been no getting to know each other; they had each leapt into the friendship head first. They talked about anything and everything, spent most of their freetime together, and planned to remain lab partners as adults.

He had grown used to that closeness, so it was something of a surprise when her phone beeped in class and he had no idea why she promptly burst into tears when she read the message. Jemma was not a loud crier, so it actually took him a second to notice it at all. 

“Simmons,” he whispered, leaning over to make a joke. “I think that Nick Fury must have slept through the lecture on leadership. I don’t think that he’s trusted somebody else’s authority a day in his life.” When she didn’t answer, not even a hum of acknowledgment, he looked over at her.

She had covered her mouth with one trembling hand, eyes glued to the speaker as her shoulders trembled.

“Jem,” he murmured. His heart flip-flopped in his chest; he had no idea what to do with a crying Jemma. Hug her? Ignore it so she could retain a little dignity? “What’s happened?”

She shook her head, still avoiding his gaze. He tentatively reached over, spreading his fingers to allow hers to weave through when she grabbed him back. He gripped her hand, ignoring the dampness from her tears and the way she held him so tightly he thought he might break. An engineer with broken fingers was useless, but so was a Fitz without Simmons. He had come to rely on her in the prior months, and he no longer knew where his brain ended and hers began.

“Spill,” he demanded after the class. They sat together on her bed, each one hugging a pillow.

“It’s just a prank, Fitz,” she said shakily. She smiled, but there was no steel behind it. “I overreacted; it’s nothing to worry about.”

“That’s crap,” he said. Simmons didn’t cry. She said that they were already viewed as children playing an adult’s game; if she proved to be a crier, she would be a crybaby as well. “What was the prank? Who did it?”

She refused to meet his eyes, instead smiling falsely down at her fingers. “It must have been one of the girls who has my number. You’re the only boy with my number, and I know you aren’t in on it -”

“I most certainly am not,” he declared, ignoring the fluttering in his chest at the fact that he was the only boy with her number. It’s stupid to be excited about, he told himself. They were only teenagers, after all, at a school full of adult-types. What other boys would have wanted her number?

“Somebody wrote my phone number on the wall in the boy’s bathroom,” she confessed. Her smile went a little watery. “I’ve been getting texts for days. Pictures of genitalia, crass comments, raunchy requests. That isn’t even including the phone calls, Fitz. It’s nothing to be upset about, but I just lost my patience for a second.”

He gaped at her, ears turning a little pink at the tips. He could feel them burning, and he wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment on her behalf or pure indignation. “That’s sexual harassment, Jemma. You should turn those texts over to the administration -”

“No!” she bellowed. “If I do that, I lose. We already don’t fit in here, but if I do that,” she said, trailing off.

He knew what she meant. They would never fit in at the Academy, but that wasn’t so bad when they knew that they would only be there for a few more months. If they got some seniors in trouble, the last few months at the school would be a living hell. They would lose any respect they got because of their intellect.

He nodded, defeated, before perking up a little. “Give me your phone.”

She did, brow furrowing a little. “I don’t want you texting them,” she said. “I mean it; there’s no real harm done.”

“I’m no hacker,” he said slowly. He typed rapidly, smiling ever so slightly as he did. “But I can send a virus just fine.”

He forcibly ignored the texts she’d received - dick pics, pick up lines that nobody had fallen for since, well, ever, and accusations about her sluttiness - while he sent a few lines of code to every unwelcome number in her contact list. 

He grinned, handing back her cell. “The text they sent to you is going to their parents the second they open the text I sent,” he explained with pride. “Good luck explaining that to their mums.”

She gave a slow, heart-stopping grin. It wasn’t her science-is-great smile, or her the-future-is-bright smile. It was her Fitz smile; his favorite one. “Can you do it again, but sending copies to their grandmothers?”

He smiled, taking back her phone.

 

He looked through every bathroom at the Academy. He checked the Engineering building, Biochem, Computer Sciences, and Physics. Finally, and perhaps most obvious of all, he found her number written on the wall in the men’s locker room. 

“For a good time, call”

He scrubbed the words off the wall, ignoring the looks he got from students walking through. He flushed a little when a boy started showering while he washed the tiles, but he studiously continued. Presumably, most of the people who texted the number knew it was Jemma. Whoever supplied the number would have spread the word, and all anybody had to do to join in was take the number from the wall.

By the time the wall was clear, his knuckles were red and chafed. He couldn't fix this. He couldn’t make her forget the embarrassment, and he couldn’t make people stop now that her information was out there. He couldn’t change it.

Maybe he could make her see it in a different light.

He made a new program on his tablet, giving himself a new number that she wouldn’t recognize. Jemma wouldn’t question seeing him typing on his tablet, so she wouldn’t suspect him when she got encouraging texts from an unknown number. After all, she wouldn’t have seen him with any new tech.

???: What’s your favorite joke?

He waited for her response, heart hammering. She wouldn’t know it was him. It was fine. It wouldn’t seem like a pity text, and it might be encouraging.

When she finally texted back, he was so relieved that his legs went a little weak.

Jemma: What?

???: What’s your favorite joke?

There was a long pause, though he knew Jemma well enough to know that she would be so perplexed by the text to have waited for his response.

He mouthed her response as he read it, his smile bemused. Of course her favorite joke was “two chemists walk into a bar. The first one says “I’ll have H2O”. The second one says “I’ll have H2O too”. The second one dies.”

???: That’s awful.

Jemma: Then you shouldn’t be texting a stranger for a joke.

???: You aren’t a stranger.

When she texted him again, he ignored it. That would be enough for now. 

 

After a few days of radio silence, she texted him again.

Jemma: It’s not fair to ask for my favorite joke, and then not to give yours.

???: Two nuns sat on a park bench. A man in a trenchcoat walked up to them and flashed them. One of the nuns had a stroke. The other couldn’t reach.

He was sitting alone in his room, but he thought he could imagine the bewildered laugh she would have given. The way she would have bitten her lip while typing out a response.

Jemma: That’s terrible. At least my joke was clever.

???: Mine was totally clever. Decent word play is much funnier than chemistry.

She disagreed, but he knew that she would enjoy the debate. As much as Jemma liked intelligent conversation, he had found that she almost preferred ridiculous conversations if they had some sort of logic. Could she prove that chemistry was funnier than word play? No. Was it fun to try? Absolutely.

 

Jemma: Do I know you?

???: Everybody at the Academy knows each other.

Jemma: But do I know you?

???: Of course. That’s why I texted to begin with.

 

He was relieved when Simmons had relaxed some the next time he saw her. 

“Did the texts stop?”

She shrugged, lips curling into a sweet smile. “The bad ones. I got a couple of mean texts, and a few apologies from boys who had been chewed out by their mums. All the bad stuff has stopped.”

He bit into a carrot stick, relishing in the loud crunch it gave. “Bad stuff? As opposed to the good texts?”

“Actually -” she began, but cut herself off. “They weren’t all bad,” she said crisply.

When he knew she wasn’t watching, he smiled. She was happy again. Maybe not just because of the conversations they had, but it certainly hadn’t hurt.

“You know, we could try to figure out who spread your number around,” he began. “Turn the whites of her eyes blue with Methylene blue or something.”

She beamed at him, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand. “There’s no need, really. You already fixed it all. Thank you so much, Fitz. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

He grinned, a little goofy. “Yeah, well, you’d have done the same.”

She gave a vicious smile. “If somebody does something bad to you, we’ll put laxatives in their lunch during finals week.”

He guffawed, and her smile softened. She still hadn’t let go of his hand, but neither tried to pull away.

 

Jemma: Why did you text me that first time?

???: The note said to text for a good time. What’s more fun than jokes?

 

They had been up too late, but the rabbit trail they had gone down in the middle of their lab had taken them somewhere far too interesting to give up on.

“I think,” Fitz said through a large yawn, “I think that we could make the D.W.A.R.F.S learn to act on their own if we just - just -” He had to stop when he yawned again.

Simmons blinked blearily at him. “Just what?”

“Just - What was I talking about?” He hadn’t told Simmons, but he hadn’t slept much the night before either. He had been too busy writing a lab report that he had put off, having opting instead to text her. She probably would have made him do the work, had she known that it was him she was texting.

She rubbed at her eyes, standing with a groan. “We need sleep. We’ll be able to think clearly after we get some rest.”

“We’re almost done,” he protested feebly. All the same, when she tugged on his arm, he stood.

The two wobbled across campus. He insisted on walking her home, refusing to budge when she protested.

“You’re in sorrier shape than I am.” She set her jaw, as though he would still fall for her boorish face.

“You’re the one was so desperate to go to bed,” he teased. “If you’re making me go home, at least let me play knight-in-shining-armor first.”

“You’re not a knight,” she said fondly. “You’re the Pierre to my Marie Curie.”

“They were married,” he said blankly.

They stood outside the door to her building, the only people awake on a dark and quiet campus. In the sharp glow of the streetlights, her eyes glittered. “As well they should have been.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, leaving him dumbfounded on the sidewalk.

 

Jemma: Colors are tricks of the mind. They aren’t even real, they’re just our perception of certain wavelengths.

???: That doesn’t excuse saying that grey is your favorite color.

Jemma: It’s easy on the eyes, and it matches everything!

???: It’s a crime, is what it is.

 

Jemma grinned down at her phone as she typed. Fitz had to work to school his face when the screen of his tablet lit up.

Jemma: Who’s cuter: Thor or Loki?

He wanted to gape at the screen; he wanted to laugh at Jemma. He wanted to ask her about it to her face. He wanted her to ask him questions like that in person, knowing that it was him.

He had always thought that she talked to him about everything, but the weeks of texting had shown him that there were plenty of things he hadn’t known about her. Knowing that she hated dividing functions more than any other kind of math was not knowing her; knowing a person meant knowing what would make them laugh, or what snacks to buy them at the store. He knew Jemma now, because he knew which nights she would want to look at the sunset because of the streaks of purple in the sky.

???: Neither of them are my type, Simmons.

Jemma: Picky, picky.

???: I’m partial to biochemists, myself.

He peeked at her out of the corner of his eye, noting the slight blush that grew on her face. He had to stuff a handful of chips into his mouth to hide the delighted smile that crept through his mask of indifference.

Jemma: I like Thor more. It’s the muscles.

His smile faltered. He certainly didn’t have muscles. He was skin and bones, and that probably worked in his favor. His lack of physical activity didn’t exactly encourage muscle building, and his eating habits didn’t help.

Jemma: But I think I could overlook a lack of muscles if he made up for it mentally.

His heart soared. 

???: I always knew Jane Foster was more of a Loki girl.

She laughed out loud, and when he asked her what she was laughing about, she just shook her head.

“You wouldn’t think it’s funny,” she said. “It’s a thing with a friend.”

“Anybody I know?” he asked, the picture of innocence.

“Probably,” she admitted breezily. “Just a boy. A really great boy.”

 

???: We both know that SHIELD must be keeping track of people with powers, if there are any. I’m just saying, it’s totally possible that Nick Fury and Professor X are best friends.

Jemma: It’s a comic book. He’s not real, even if there are mass quantities of mutants.

???: The perfect cover is one in plain sight, Simmons. He could be real, but using the comic books as a front.

Jemma: It’s a little strange that you can use my name, but I don’t know yours.

 

She wanted to meet him.

Fitz hadn’t thought things through, not really. He had just wanted to make her happy. He hadn’t thought about the fact that cheering her up would make her want to be friends. 

He had known that it would be easier to prove a point to her if she didn’t know it was him, but he hadn’t known that it would be so much easier to flirt with her if she didn’t know it was him. He had wanted to flirt with her since the day they met, of course, but he hadn’t known how. He had never wanted to impress somebody before Jemma, and once he had impressed her, he hadn’t thought that she could ever be impressed the way he wanted her to be.

Now he knew, and he wanted to be able to flirt with her all the time. He wanted to tell her that she was his type for real. He wanted to reference their jokes, and he wanted to meet her eyes when he sent a particularly biting text. He wanted to have Jemma Simmons on every platform, but he had no idea how to tell her about the ploy so far along.

As it turned out, he didn’t have to know how. It all came to light on its own. It was his own fault; he seldom thought about what he was saying before actually saying it. He thought about what not to say, but not what to say.

He had made a miscalculation with a machine. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, and he rather liked watching something go wrong so long as nobody he wanted to impress was there to see. He always wanted to impress Jemma, but it was too late to impress her with inventions. She expected his brilliance and accepted his failures, just as he did with her.

The small engine for the Dragon-Spy prototype had exploded while he leaned in close to work on it. He’d had his goggles on, so no damage was done, but a few of his curls had smoldered. He patted them all out rapidly, mumbling about bloody small wires, and Jemma had laughed.

“Come here,” she’d sighed. “You missed a spot, and I can smell the burning.”

“Go on then,” he’d said without thinking. “Stroke it, unless you can’t reach.”

She froze, hand in his hair. “What?”

He swallowed thickly, ears already starting to burn. “It’s the punchline to this joke, you know -”

“I know the joke,” she said. He could see the gears turning. In her eyes, he watched the puzzle pieces fall into place. The timing of the texts. The familiarity the person had texted her with. The fact that the person had felt okay about flirting innocently, when many of the other guys at the school were enough older that they wouldn’t have flirted without other motives. And, now, the joke.

“It’s my favorite,” he said softly, sheepishly.

“Yes,” she replied. Her voice was faint. She knew. She knew, and she didn’t look mad, but she looked bewildered.

“Grey is a bloody stupid color to choose as a favorite, Jem, and that’s a fact.” The words were a little too loud; a little too anxious.

“Oh, shut up, Fitz,” she sighed. Her lips curled up a little bit. “You know, a part of me had wished that it was you,” she said. She brought her hand back up to his hair, this time to bury itself in his curls so she could pull his face to hers.

Kissing Jemma Simmons felt sort of like arguing with her did. It was each of them trying to lead, but neither of them knowing how. It was building on what the other did, each discovering something new and wonderful and perfect. It was finding what the other was good at and using it to make everything more beautiful than before. It was like arguing, but with the taste of tea and the delicious tugging of curls and fingers gripping hips a little too tight.

Finally, Jemma broke away with a gasp. “Your hair smells terrible,” she mumbled happily. “Absolutely dreadful.”

He grinned, leaning forward to kiss her briefly. “Do you think Thor’s hair smells like that when he summons lightning?”

“No,” she said confidently. “The lightning all hits his hammer, and -”

He kissed her again, swallowing the words. “Yeah,” he said resolutely.

“What?” Her eyes were bright, bright, bright. It was as though smiling wasn’t enough, and the delight had to leak out wherever it could. Her eyes, her laughter, in the touching of her fingers, the shifting of her hair. Happiness poured out of her, and he wanted to catch all of it.

“I definitely would rather kiss a biochemist than Thor or Loki.”

She laughed, pulling him back in again. He did not resist.


End file.
